Israel’s ex-PM calls for destruction of Iran nuclear facilities after attack

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
| Photo Credit: AP

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday (October 2, 2024) called for a decisive strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities after the Islamic republic fired a barrage of missiles at Israel.

“We must act now to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, its central energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this terrorist regime,” Mr. Bennett wrote on X just hours after the attack on Israel on Tuesday.

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“We have the justification. We have the tools. Now that Hezbollah and Hamas are paralysed, Iran stands exposed,” wrote Mr. Bennett.

In a separate statement, Israel’s main opposition leader Yair Lapid said Iran should pay a “significant and heavy price” for the attack.

“Tehran knows that Israel is coming. The response needs to be tough and it should send an unequivocal message to the terror axis in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza and in Iran itself,” said Mr. Lapid, who also briefly served as premier in 2022.

Iran has been accused of seeking to develop atomic weapons, though the Islamic republic insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

Israel is widely known to have nuclear weapons but has never admitted so.

Tuesday’s attack was Iran’s second direct strike on Israel after a missile and drone attack in April in response to a deadly Israeli air strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.

While Iran-backed groups across the region had already been drawn into the Gaza war, sparked by Palestinian group Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Tehran has largely refrained from direct attacks on its regional arch-enemy.

Mr. Bennett was appointed prime minister after elections in 2021 and oversaw a broad political coalition but he only manged to stay in office for a year.

Despite announcing his retirement in June 2022, there have been indications Mr. Bennett might be seeking a return to politics.

In July, Gideon Saar — a justice minister under Bennett who this week joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition — said he held discussions with Bennett about his desire to return to politics.

A poll taken by Israeli newspaper Maariv this week showed that if Mr. Bennett did decide to return, a party under his leadership would garner almost as many votes as Mr. Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party.